A new survey finds employees lack leadership support for
entrepreneurial ideas. Experts say that a big part of building and nurturing a
culture that actively supports entrepreneurship includes rewarding great ideas,
not just waiting until they prove successful.

By Carol Patton

Monday, January 13, 2014

Employees
in corporate America are hungry, but not necessarily for more perks, a bigger
office or a closer parking space.

They
want to think, act and make decisions like an entrepreneur, if only their
employer would support them.

Accenture,
a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company,
surveyed 800 corporate employees and business decision makers about entrepreneurism
in the workplace. The 2013 study, Corporate Innovation is Within Reach:
Nurturing and Enabling an Entrepreneurial Culture, revealed that more than
half (52 percent) of the respondents pursued an entrepreneurial idea inside
their company, yet only 20 percent believe "their company offers enough
support for developing new ideas."

That's
not exactly good news, especially for global companies engaged in fierce competition.
Considering that 89 percent of the survey's respondents agree that an
entrepreneurial attitude can lead
to new ideas that promote growth, the study's message is clear: Unless employers
build and support an entrepreneurial culture over the next decade, they risk
losing their competitive edge and possibly industry ranking in a rapidly
changing marketplace.

Among
the most interesting survey findings is the wide gap between employer and
employee perceptions, says Matt Reilly, head of management consulting,
Accenture North America, in Atlanta.

"Over
one-third of people who left their employer and started their own business said
the No. 1 reason they left was, 'I can't get rewarded for entrepreneurial
ideas,' " he says. "People have the energy to be [entrepreneurial],
to take the personal risk. It's up to [managers] to build that into the process
so they can capitalize on it, without forcing people to leave."

Other
survey findings include:

* The biggest
hurdle to pursuing new ideas is that employees are too busy performing the
responsibilities of their job (36 percent), followed by lack of management
support (20 percent), and a lack of incentives for generating entrepreneurial
ideas (13 percent).

* Fifty-three
percent state their company does not support ideas for all levels of the
workforce.

* Seventy-seven
percent report that new ideas are rewarded only when they are implemented and
proven to work. Another 27 percent say they avoid pursuing an idea with their
company, out of concern about negative repercussions.

* On average,
employers say that it takes six months for ideas to be proven successful. Not
so, say employees, who indicated it takes 12 months.

Considering
these disparities, HR can help business leaders get in sync with their
workforce by actively fostering risk-taking attitudes, directing staff more
effectively to focus on ideas that can enhance revenues and profits, and
implementing clear incentive policies that offer appropriate rewards for idea
generation, according to the survey's authors.

However,
that's easier said than done. Many companies don't know how to balance the
input and energy of their employees, says Reilly. "The problem is they don't
have a good mechanism to understand how much they should focus on near-term and
long-term [goals]," he says.

"Other
reasons for not supporting a corporate entrepreneurship environment involve "survivor
mentality," says Donald F. Kuratko, the Jack M. Gill chair of
entrepreneurship, professor of entrepreneurship and executive director of the Johnson
Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Indiana University-Bloomington.

During
tough economic times, he says, employees are typically overloaded with daily
tasks and short-term projects. No one pays much attention to ideas that may
produce a big payday three to five years down the road.

"They
don't realize that because of this survival mentality, they're sacrificing the
long-term viability of their company," Kuratko says. "That's been a
problem in U.S. corporations for decades. They've always had this short-term
mentality -- let's make our quarterly earnings, because that's what it's all
about."

Not
to mention corporate status and competition. He says some executives believe it's
their job to deliver and execute entrepreneurial ideas, not frontline workers,
so they tend to overlook creative, risk-taking ideas suggested by those
positioned lower on the corporate ladder.

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But
part of building and nurturing a culture that actively supports
entrepreneurship includes rewarding great ideas, not just waiting until they
prove successful.

"If
you're going to try to engender a spirit of entrepreneurship in your people,
you have to understand that, in some ways, you have to find even small rewards
for these folks to show them that you care about their ideas," Kuratko
says. "Don't just say, 'Once somebody hits a home run, then we'll
celebrate.' "

But
first HR needs to define entrepreneurship, says Susan Foley, managing partner
at Corporate Entrepreneurs, a professional service firm in Melrose, Mass. HR can
do so by addressing a series of questions: What kind of ideas is the company
looking for? What criteria will be used to evaluate ideas? How does
entrepreneurship differ from innovation?

Above
all, HR needs to identify senior execs or other managers who are willing to be
sponsors, she says. Such individuals must be willing to do whatever it takes to
bring great ideas to market, ranging from stepping on toes and breaking rules to
fighting for ideas or projects in the face of opposition, she says.

However,
she says companies tend to lean on traditional business leaders who support
older, mental models that worked in the past but may not be as effective in the
future. Unlike these individuals, entrepreneurial leaders possess different
core competencies, such as independent thinking and the ability to navigate
uncertainty. They must move forward in a way that's "not business as
usual," says Foley.

Perhaps
HR's toughest challenge is helping business leaders experience being or acting
entrepreneurial. While some may understand this from an intellectual perspective,
she says, the head is oftentimes not connected to the heart. Another problem is
that most are not experienced at building a new business within their
organization. As a result, they lack the experience base and revert back to
traditional practices that don't relate to today's business environment.

"Everybody
thinks they're an entrepreneur when, in reality, they're not," says Foley,
adding that HR must also manage the company's expectation about
entrepreneurship.

"We
have executives who are thinking about how they built the core business,"
she says, "but not really understanding how they need to build a new
business. That's the disconnect."